Currently Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ah defines the local area network protocol, especially for sub-1 gigahertz (GHz) carrier frequency. Its main requirements include longer coverage area, up to 1 km, a physical (PHY) data rate of at least 100 kilobits per second (kbps), a maximum aggregate multi-station data rate of 20 megabits per second (Mbps), use of Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) PHY modulation, and support for the number of associations beyond 2007 for outdoor applications. However, the hidden node problem is an issue for 802.11ah. As coverage area is wider (up to 1 kilometer (km) in outdoor applications), more and more stations (STAs) cannot hear each other due to limited transmit power and channel shadowing/fading.